Fossil-fuel emissions unbraked by financial crisis

December 5, 2011

Activists burn a symbol of carbon dioxide in Berlin. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels and the cement industry scaled a record high in 2010, rocketing by 5.9 percent over 2009 in a surge led by developing countries, scientists reported on Sunday.

Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels and the cement industry scaled a record high in 2010, rocketing by 5.9 percent over 2009 in a surge led by developing countries, scientists reported on Sunday.

For the first time ever, annual CO2 from these sources topped nine billion tonnes, reaching an estimated 9.1 gigatonnes, they said in a letter to the journal Nature Climate Change.

The year-on-year rise was the highest ever recorded and more than wiped out a 1.4-percent fall in 2009 which occurred as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis.

"After only one year, the global financial crisis has had little impact on the strong growth trend of global CO2 emissions that characterised most of the 2000s," said the letter, led by Glen Peters of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway.

The rebound may be explained by a swift easing in energy prices and injections of government funds to help recovery, the authors suggested.

For the first time, in 2009, developing countries surpassed developed
countries in consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. The shaded region represents the difference between developed and developing consumption-based and production-based carbon dioxide emissions. Credit: ORNL

CO2 emissions from rich countries fell by 1.3 percent in 2008 and 7.6 percent in 2009, but increased by 3.4 percent in 2010. The United States, historically the world's biggest emitter and currently ranked second after China, saw an increase in 2010 of 4.1 percent.

Even so, emissions from developed countries in 2010 remained lower than their average emissions when measured over 2000-2007.

In contrast, emissions from developing countries increased by 4.4 percent in 2008, 3.9 percent in 2009 and 7.6 percent in 2010.

This growth was concentrated especially in China, which saw a year-on-year increase of 10.4 percent, and in India, where there was a rise of 9.4 per cent.

The letter, authored by six prominent scientists, was published at the midway point at the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

Nations are struggling for agreement on how to tame CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases which trap solar heat and thus create a man-made trigger for climate change.

One of the biggest bones of contention is whether emerging giant economies should be part of a global, legally-binding treaty.

The United States says a pact can only be envisaged if China and India, in particular, have constraints.

Right now, the developing countries have no specific curbs under the Kyoto Protocol or under the wider agreement in the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The letter published on Sunday concurs with data published last month by the US Department of Energy that focused on fossil-fuel consumption.

According to an analysis on Thursday released by a British risk-analysis firm Maplecroft, five countries -- China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan -- account for more than half of all emissions of man-made greenhouse gases.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 per cent in the last two decades, according to the latest figures by an international team, including researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate ...

Greenhouse-gas emissions by the 27 members of the European Union fell by 7.1 percent in 2009 over 2008, driven by economic recession but also a switch to renewable energy, the European Environment Agency (EAA) said on Tuesday.

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This news article demonstrates the effectiveness of government propaganda.

There will be no peace on Earth this holiday season unless world leaders awaken to reality and accept their total powerlessness over the forces of nature.

World leaders were frightened by the powerful nuclear force that vaporized Hiroshima in 1945 and threatened to destroy the world in a final act of mutual nuclear destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

They made agreements in 1971 to save the world by uniting nations against an imaginary common enemy global climate warming.

More irrational and unfounded anti-capitalist, anti-oil absurdities from the lunatic-fringe Left. The environmentalist radicals are banking on the ignorance of the general public on the issue of supposed manmade (Anthropogenic) Global Warming, a pseudoscientific hoax perpetrated by non-scientist AlGore, in order to push their socialistic/anti-capitalist agenda for the planet. The science of climatology, unvarnished by AGW Alarmist Propaganda tells us that warm and cold cycles are as natural to earth as the change of the seasons. The alleged culprit of supposed man-made global warming, the amount of CO2 that is man-made comprises only about 3.207% of the atmosphere (not considering water vapor, the top greenhouse gas in the atmosphere!)If water vapor is taken into account, only about 0.28% is man-made greenhouse gases...of that 0.28%! http://www.geocra...ata.htmlThat's nothing to worry about yet the AGW Alarmists are doing their chicken-little imitations!

Omatur...i started writing a response to your ranting...but then I kinda felt sad. Your remind me of the paranoid schizophrenic elders at a loony house with their saliva dripping all over them, ranting about the government conspiracies...Pity..I wish they had internet. Their comments would make more sense than yours....

More irrational and unfounded anti-capitalist, anti-oil absurdities from the lunatic-fringe Left. The environmentalist radicals are banking on the ignorance of the general public on the issue of supposed manmade (Anthropogenic) Global Warming

Flailing everywhere he can. He knows all of the buttons to push to start another flame war. What a looser.

"Omatur...i started writing a response to your ranting...but then I kinda felt sad." - Doom

I feel kinda sad for OmaTard as well. Clearly his coming prison time and the hate his children feel for him has caused him to become very depressed and withdrawn, spending his days positing nonsense here, and refusing to engage in conversation so that he will not need to respond to the very serious charges his children have alleged against him.

Every day and in every way, you and your dishonest Denialist brethren are becoming more and more desperate as nature asserts itself and your long list of lies becomes self evident even to the most vile of fools.

"The environmentalist radicals are banking on the ignorance of the general public" - Idiot from Idiot-ville.

@ peteone1 , Dam it! you're on to us .Me and my commie comrades will have to regroup and devise a new strategy. Dam you! you foiled our plot to take over the world and convert the populous to tree hugging godless atheist mwah ha ha ha ha . We'll be back ,and we'll take the weather with us

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